


Almost Elegant

by sithwitch13



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:38:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sithwitch13/pseuds/sithwitch13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-series.  Arnold Rothstein and Charlie "Lucky" Luciano's working relationship gets off to a promising start.  Semi-slash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost Elegant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [viceindustrious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceindustrious/gifts).



> Here's a Yuletide treat! While researching, I found that Lucky Luciano was quoted as saying, "He taught me how to dress... how to use knives and forks and things like that at the dinner table, about holdin’ a door open for a girl... If Arnold had lived a little longer, he could’ve made me pretty elegant." It struck a chord.
> 
> Thanks to my beta.

Rothstein walked like a cat. All purpose, no rush, like he meant every step and movement.  You could picture him stalking behind some bird or rat somewhere, the way he moved, just as easy as you could picture him sitting in the lap of luxury.

 

Right now, Charlie—Lucky to some of his friends, Salvatore to his Ma—felt distinctly doglike. Kinda like one that had pissed on the floor, maybe, from the look that the guy with the tape measure was giving him. He jutted his jaw and didn’t growl at the skinny, four-eyed _arruso_. Rothstein was watching.

 

The tailor sniffed, but glanced at Rothstein, who nodded. “I have a certain image that I need projected,” Rothstein said. “And I need the people who work for me to enhance that image.”

 

“What’s wrong with how I look now?” Charlie asked sulkily. Rothstein was right, and he’d win, but Charlie wouldn’t go down without a fight. He’d been dressing like this all his life.  It was hard changing something he'd been doing all his life.

 

Still, at that meeting with Lansky and Rothstein, the man had looked so confident, and it hadn’t all been the self-assurance. The guy dressed like he meant business in a serious way, and not the down-and-dirty way that had until recently been all Charlie had known and respected.  It was like... suddenly, _he_ wanted to be the one like that one day.  But he wanted to hold on to this, too.

 

Rothstein seemed to be at least partially aware of the half-heartedness of Charlie’s argument, and he smiled in a patronizing sort of way that would have earned anyone else a busted lip at the very least. “Would you go get some samples, please?” he asked the tailor.

 

The skinny little guy didn’t talk back to Rothstein. That was something else that Charlie wanted. Nobody talked back to Rothstein. Except occasionally Charlie couldn’t keep his mouth shut, and he felt like an asshole just after but sometimes Rothstein thought it was funny. Not always, depending on what he said and who else was around, but sometimes.

 

“What’s wrong with what you are wearing now is,” he said, moving in closer, right up in Charlie’s face in a way that could have been threatening if he’d been talking a little different, “that you look like a thug.”

 

“I thought that’s what you wanted,” Charlie said, wondering if the boss would take it as an insult if he stepped back.  He didn't like it when guys got this close to him.

 

Rothstein’s smile was that weird thing… what was it? _Enigmatic_ , someone had said once, what it was called when you didn’t know what someone was really thinking. “I want a well-dressed thug,” he said. “One with table manners.”

 

“I got those, too.”

 

“I’m sure,” he said, still smiling that weird little smile. He moved a little more, kind of next to Charlie instead of in front of him now. Charlie tried to take a step away, boss or no, but Rothstein grabbed his arm. Guy had a strong grip, and it stopped him. “I want a Renaissance man,” he said, right in Charlie’s ear, very quiet. “A whole person. One who can dress, and think, and do the more _physical_ things—“ his grip tightened, and Charlie flinched—“when the circumstances arise.”

 

Then he let go, and stepped back, still with that pleasant little smile, not looking pissed off at all. “Do I make myself clear, Mr. Luciano?”

 

“Yeah,” Charlie said, shaking his shoulders once but not rubbing that spot. Guy might have left a bruise, he’d grabbed down so hard, but he wouldn’t show it. “Yeah, I got it.”

 

“Good. Then you’ll have no objections to my input.” He opened the door before the skinny tailor could knock, grabbed the armful of cloth out of his arms with some of the soft and non-threatening but firm words that he seemed to be really good at, and closed it again. “He won’t come in here again until I call,” he told Charlie.

 

“Uh,” Charlie said.

 

Rothstein looked critically at the clothes and put a couple down out of hand. “These are entirely too gaudy,” he said at Charlie’s inquisitive look.

 

“I kinda like that one.”

 

“I don’t employ common pimps.”

 

Charlie started to say that some of his best friends were pimps, but bit it back. No more small-time pimps and hustlers. This was the big time.

 

“This one,” Rothstein said, hanging one up, laying the rest on a bench.

 

The cloth was crisper than his own well-worn stuff, that was for sure, but it was heavy and fine, too. Expensive by look and feel, and the color was a rich brown. Even the shirt was nice.

 

“You gonna leave?” he asked as Rothstein sat down on another bench.

 

“Mmm… no.”

 

“I ain’t gonna steal it,” Charlie said, insulted and out of depth.

 

Rothstein didn’t say anything else, just waved his hand to go ahead like he was in charge. And yeah, he was. Charlie shucked out of his clothes, not looking at Rothstein, and started pulling on the suit.

 

“You’re not doing it right,” said Rothstein, amused. “The point of this exercise is to get you looking distinguished, not like you’ve fallen out of bed. Look—“

 

He was there, right up close like before except not grabbing skin now. Pulling expensive fabric into place, smoothing it out, and even with the token resistance that he put up in the face of his suddenly changing image the hero-worship he’d felt in that meeting jumped up again, like _he_ was the _arruso_ , and he bit his lip.

 

Before it could become humiliating, Rothstein stepped back, crossing his arms. “There, you see? You _can_ look civilized.”

 

Charlie blew out a deep breath and turned around, glancing at the mirror behind him. “Huh.”  Damn if he didn’t look downright dapper. He did a couple of quarter-turns, admiring how it fell and draped and all those words that the tailor had used in describing how suits were supposed to look.

 

Rothstein stood behind him, clapped hands on his shoulders, and gave him an encouraging shake, with a little squeeze. “And your education begins, Mr. Luciano.”

 

Charlie grinned.

 


End file.
